Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society’s Dodge Homestead Tour

The brown-shingled Thomas Dodge Homestead (c. 1721) is one of the oldest extant house in the Port Washington area. It has long been a favorite local landmark. Thomas Dodge I built the house after migrating to Cow Neck from Block Island in 1718. Seven generations of the Dodge family lived in the house. The house has changed little since its construction.

There are several other structures on the property including a two horse barn, a vegetable garden, a chicken coop and a vintage outhouse. The adjacent Water Pollution Control District purchased the House, and the property on which it sits, to act as a buffer zone in the early 1990s. Because the District is prevented by law from maintaining a museum, it asked the Society to open the historic house to the public as a museum in 1993. Since that time, the Society has been actively restoring the grounds and the house and developing the Museum’s collections.

The Thomas Dodge House is a Town of North Hempstead Historic Landmark and is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.